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Slightly Select Bibliography

I couldn’t do any of this without some use of a bibliography. I am a Librarian and Historian after all. I spent a considerable portion of 2014 writing a humongous annotated bibliography while finishing my Master’s thesis. I met my thesis advisor in the supermarket the other day and she pointed out that there are punctuation errors through my citations. How quickly we forget. Please let me know if I’ve mauled something too badly.

Carvair (November – December 2014)

Aussie Airliners, “VH-INY” http://www.aussieairliners.org/dc-4/vh-iny/vhiny.html (accessed November 9, 2014).
“The home of an incredible collection of aircraft images and the only web site in the world that presents in-depth histories of Australian registered airliners.”
This particular page gives a potted history of N83FA’s career and identities, particularly during its time in Australia as VH-INY.

More on VH-INY during HM Queen Elizabeth’s tour of Australia in 1954 courtesy of the State library of Tasmania.

Dean, William Patrick. The ATL-98 Carvair: A Comprehensive History of the Aircraft and All 21 Airframes. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.

Gann, Ernest Kellogg. Fate Is the Hunter. New York : Simon and Schuster, 1961
“Ernest K. Gann’s classic memoir is an up-close and thrilling account of the treacherous early days of commercial aviation.” (worldcat.org) Gann may have flown the subject C-54 c/n 10365 N58003 while serving with Matson Airlines in the late 40s, before it became VH-INY and much later, “Carvair Five” and N83FA.

Le Carré, John. The Honourable Schoolboy. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1977.
The book that gave birth to this blog. Worth reading for the literary style alone, but also vital if you want to bridge the gap between Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People, especially as the proposed BBC dramatization was cancelled.

Rowe, Frank Joseph, and H. Craig Miner. Borne on the South Wind: A Century of Aviation in Kansas. Wichita, KS: Wichita Eagle and Beacon Pub. Co, 1994.

This is a wonderful book which documents the first century of Kansas aviation. Some of the very early schemes are worthy of Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines. Recommended.

RAF Bomber Command Stories (December 16th, 2014)

Charlwood, Donald. No Moon Tonight. London: Angus & Robertson, 1956.

Tripp, Miles. The Eighth Passenger. London: Heinemann, 1969.

Yates, Harry. Luck and a Lancaster. Shrewsbury: Airlife, 1999.

“Aircraft Q failed to return.” (http://rafww2butler.wordpress.com/) This site is dedicated to the memory of Sgt. Cecil Arthur “Butch” Butler (1913-1945), Flight Engineer on Lancaster ME334 “TL-Q” of 35 Squadron. Butler and the rest of the Johnson crew were killed on their 31st operation on 4th February, 1945 when their Lancaster was shot down on the outskirts of Bonn.

Meopham Air Disaster – July 1930 (February 11th 2015)

Technical Report by the Accidents Investigation Sub-Committee on the Accident to the Aeroplane G-AAZK at Meopham, Kent, on 21st July, 1930. Air Ministry. Aeronautical Research Committee. Reports and memoranda, No. 1360. 1931.

I think I have traced three copies of this book. Two are in Germany, (Berlin and Dresden) traced through WorldCat, and one in the Linda Hall Library of Science and Technology, Kansas City, Missouri, which I have seen myself.

Harriet Quimby (16th April 2015)

“In 1911 Quimby authored seven screenplays or scenarios that were made into silent film shorts by Biograph Studios. All seven were directed by director D. W. Griffith.” (Wikipedia). I might like to look into this sometime as I spend a few hours each semester talking about Birth of a Nation

Battle of Britain (July 2015, August – September 2016, and probably more)

This might be a place to list a lot of my Battle of Britain book collection, if I have the will to do it.

Mason, Francis K. Battle Over Britain: A History of the German Air Assaults on Great Britain, 1917-18 and July-December 1940, and of the Development Af Britain’s Air Defences between the World Wars. Bourne End: Aston Publications, 1990.
This is in my opinion one of the best chronological accounts of the Battle OF Britain and also the first raids on England in the First World War. The research is very thorough although once or twice I( have noticed Mason’s notes on casualties differ from some of the more recent histories.

Wood, Derek, and Derek Dempster. The Narrow Margin: The Battle of Britain and the Rise of Air Power 1930 – 40. London: Arrow, 1967.
Originally published in 1961, this is the book which in part was used in the making of the 1969 movie Battle of Britain Not as detailed as Battle over Britain but worth seeking out, nevertheless.

What can we say about Charles Berlitz’ book that hasn’t been said. It’s a fascinating read forty-odd years later even if much of it is pretty specious when read with the eye of 21st Century scholarship.

Ralph Barker was a fairly prolific British aviation writer who turned out a good few titles in his career including Verdict on a Lost Flyer: the Story of Bill Lancaster (My copy is London: Harrap, 1969) – extracts from which are featured in Great Mysteries of the Air – it’s an interesting book, and describes several well known and less familiar aviation mysteries including the 1927 disappearance of Ray Hinchliffe and Elsie Mackay as they attempted to fly the Atlantic from West to East, the disappearance in 1943 and rediscovery in 1958 of the B-24 Lady be Good and the disappearance of BSAA Avro Tudor G-AHNP Star Tiger in January 1948. Worth seeking out.

Thomas, Craig: Firefox. London: Michael Joseph, 1977.
Craig Thomas’ debut novel about the theft of the fictitious MiG-31 “Firefox” which may owe some of its origins to the high-speed cold war between the USA and UK. Much better than the film, although Clint Eastwood’s performance is memorable.

Nesbit, Roy Conyers. Missing: Believed Killed: Amelia Earhart, Amy Johnson, Glenn Miller and the Duke of Kent. Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2010.
Detailed proposal of the “Lancaster” theory that Miller’s Norseman was struck in the Southern Jettison Area by bombs from Lancasters of 149 Squadron, RAF, recalled from a raid on Siegen, Germany.